Divine Solace (Nature of Desire 8)

Sensation shuddered through her, awaking nerve endings like the sweep of a gusty summer rain. His fingers trailed down her spine, back up, teasing her bra strap. She tried to breathe, to slow things down, but she didn't stop holding onto him. She was grabbing a guy's ass in the middle of a crowded place, and no one seemed to think it was unusual, but it was unusual for her. Trying to prove she could control her own impulses, she adjusted her grip to his waist, his lower back. He wrapped his arms lightly around her shoulders. His skin was slightly damp, as if he'd been dancing or exerting himself some other way.

"Want the tour?" he asked. "Or do you want to grab a quiet corner and make out until Lyda finds us?"

His eyes were intent, aroused, but playful. He always seemed to know how to help her handle her mixed feelings. "Yes, to both. But take me on the tour first."

"Your wish is my command." When he tucked her hand underneath his arm, she clasped his firm biceps. He leaned down to speak into her ear, so she could hear him over the crowd noise. "Lyda will join us in her own time. She's with some other Mistresses right now, probably swapping favorite CBT stories. Or talking about shoes. Girl stuff."

She glanced up at him. "What's CBT?"

"Cock-and-ball torture." He gave her an apologetic look. "Sorry, didn't mean to be that blatant right off the bat. Don't want to scare you."

"It would have scared me more if it applied to me. Just don't tell me if there's a version of that which does."

He grinned, leading her away from the foyer and pointing out the high points as he explained them. "The Zone has three levels now. On the top floor, there's a sound-buffered glass-bottom bar and restaurant where you can watch the dance floor or public play areas from above and have normal conversations without screaming. This middle level has a big dance floor with a perimeter mezzanine to hang out and talk, if you can manage it over the music, and another couple sections for public play. There are a few sitting areas like the lounge area where I was waiting for you, and some of them have noise buffers. The bottom floor has the private playrooms and changing areas."

As they moved through a wide walkway that split off toward different areas, she saw a carpeted stairwell leading to the lower level. Erotic art, chandeliers and elaborate moldings captured her gaze and added to the ambiance. "Watch the signs." He nodded toward one. "They tell you where drinking is allowed. See that archway over there? That's an extreme play zone, where they do anything from advanced suspension to heavy pain stuff. The security guy at that door administers a breathalyzer on whoever passes through, even if you're just going to watch. You score over the legal limit, you can't go in. There's a mezzanine viewing area." He glanced at her. "You want to go take a look from there? If you start with the scariest stuff, the rest will seem totally normal."

She gave a nervous laugh. "Okay. Why not?"

As the crowd heading onto the mezzanine area got thicker, he slipped his grip to her hand to move single file up the stairs and onto the walkway. Watching the club lights play over the tattoos on his back, she reached forward with her free hand and slid her fingers over them. He gave her another of those sleepy wolf looks over his shoulder.

He found them a small spot at the crowded railing, where she was secure between his body behind her and the rail in front, such that she could put her hand on either to steady herself. His breath was on her neck, voice against her ear to compete with the backbeat of the not-too-distant dance floor music. "If it gets to be too much," he said, "Just let me know. We can go dance or look at some of the less hardcore play. Just remember, everything happening is consensual and okay. You'll see staff circling whose job is to step in if they think otherwise. They're really good at that."

When she was a teenager, she'd been the person who liked to jump in the deep end of the pool and work back to the shallow, as if she was challenging herself to face the most difficult part first. Tonight she felt like she was that more daring girl again, and Noah was helping her enjoy that long forgotten side of herself.

Then she looked down at the floor. She felt her eyes go wide, her hand dropping to curl around Noah's on her hip. A woman was suspended like a spider's prey in a web of ropes. She'd been bound like a ballerina leaping, one leg bent beneath her, the other stretched out behind her. Her arms were up to her sides like a bird, her back arched and held that way with an array of ropes fastened to a metal circle against the small of her back. The ropes looked like a sunburst, all the "beams" tied to her thighs, arms and torso in a way that kept her in that position.

As Gen looked closer, it was clear the Dom in charge of her suspension had tied her so her joints, while strained from the position, were bearing none of her weight. Even so, she was completely helpless.

He was a tall black man with dreadlocks, wearing jeans and black mesh tank. He was in the process of pinching her nipples repeatedly. In a smooth movement, he added clamps to them. The woman cried out at the stimulation, writhing as much as the bonds allowed, which wasn't much. He stroked her face, her mouth. Gen thought she heard him call her his beautiful bird. Then he started to attach glittering weights to the clamps.

The weights were metallic colors, so as she shuddered, the light sparkled off them. The white noise of the crowd swallowed some of her response, but Gen could still see her lips part with moans at the stimulation. He'd bound her breasts so they were constricted, her nipples enlarged. Her own tingled in sympathetic response.

Hearing a raucous shout, she turned her attention to another scene, a few feet away from the suspended woman. A man was bound on a large X-shaped upright frame, being struck by a woman with a long whip. Unlike the women coming in from the parking lot on their slender heels, she wore sturdy block-heeled boots. Gen surmised it was necessary to maintain the steady, squared stance as she threw the whip. She placed the popper precisely on his shoulders, his ass, and the inside of his wide-spread thighs. Her movement was like continuous ripples on water. His raw groans built with every strike, as if he was experiencing an overload of sensation. Gen saw red marks on his back, like straight pieces of straw.

"Did

the whip do that?"

"No, she caned him first. Or it might have been a switch."

Noticing Noah's voice had a hoarse note as well, Gen glanced up at him. He was studying the scenario with an intent expression. His fingers were curled over hers, and the tight, coiled feeling she was experiencing in her stomach seemed to match the grip he had on her. Was he imagining himself where that man was, Lyda on the other end of the whip? What about herself? Which side fascinated her more?

When the Mistress rotated the cross to face another direction, Gen drew in a breath. The restrained man's cock was locked in a steel cagelike device that clamped at the base of that and his balls.

"Is that...CBT?"

"Yeah, one kind. If he starts to get erect, the chastity cage contains it, makes it painful enough that it subsides."

Did Chloe do things like this to Brendan? She had no idea how Marguerite's submission played out between her and Tyler. Actually, she wasn't sure she was ready to see any of them doing these types of things. She was glad Noah had been sensitive enough to arrange for her to come here on a night they weren't present.

Her gaze shifted left, where a heavyset woman was bound naked over a bench. She had two tattoos, one on either shoulder. One said "Delia" and the other said "David". Perhaps her children, because Gen saw stretch marks. Looking around the play area, Gen realized then there were all ages and body types, and what was striking was the lack of self-consciousness by the submissives exposing themselves at their Master or Mistress's demand. Only their approval appeared necessary, and what she saw in the faces of those Dominants suggested the degree of submission was the attraction, not an arbitrary physical standard of beauty.

Another woman around the same age and body type began paddling the tattooed woman, landing blow after blow. After a time, she gripped the bound woman's hair, lifting her head to kiss her. The submissive kissed her back with yearning greediness, her hips jerking in aroused response on the bench. As her hips lifted, Gen saw she had a plug in her cunt, one with a jeweled base and prongs that spread out and clamped on the labia, pressing into the skin. Gen tightened her own thighs, her fingers tangled with Noah's. The hard spanking, the woman's grunts of pain, made her flinch, but that kiss did other things to her.

Needing a break, she lifted her gaze, deciding she'd watch the people on the facing mezzanine level, see how they were reacting to the performances. She found herself looking directly across the open area at Lyda.

Noah's Mistress was standing at the rail, close enough Gen saw the frosted gloss on her lips, the dusting of glitter across the top of her high bosom. She wore a silver gray corset and tight gray leggings tucked into black boots. A jet pendant nestled in her deep cleavage. She'd done something to her red-gold hair that turned it into crimson flame, the waving locks forming a lush swirl around her face.